Burke, Twain, and the economy of truth
Our vocabulary for ways of saying things that are not true is abundant. Our vocabulary for ways of failing to say things that are true 鈥� not so much.聽
We have lie, short and sweet, a headline writer鈥檚 dream. We have fib. Usually too slangy for print, it nonetheless captures the intensity of a child鈥檚 nascent sense of injustice: 鈥淲hen he said his dad played for the Patriots, he fibbed!鈥澛�
罢丑别谤别鈥檚 , rooted in Latin words meaning 鈥渢o step out of line鈥� or 鈥渢o walk crookedly.鈥� The list goes on.聽
On the other side is this idiom: economical with the truth. It sounds like something you鈥檇 hear from the pursed lips of a certain kind of lawyer. 鈥淵eah, I heard what he said,鈥� you might say afterward. 鈥淏ut what did he mean?鈥�
Good question.聽
traces the phrase to the British politician Edmund Burke (1729-96). He didn鈥檛 actually use those words. He did refer, however, to 鈥� ... a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure that he may speak it the longer.鈥�
Burke鈥檚 idea seemed to be that parceling out one鈥檚 utterances of 鈥渢ruth鈥� carefully (鈥渨ith measure鈥�) would give one more time to remain active in the public conversation, able to 鈥渟peak ... longer.鈥澛�
For an elected politician or a civil servant, fewer utterances of 鈥渢ruth鈥� mean fewer occasions to offend with unpleasant fact, or to face the temptation to lie and run the risk of being caught out. But if Burke considered the 鈥溑揷onomy of truth鈥� a good thing, the idiom 鈥渢o be economical with the truth鈥� signified a bad thing.聽
The Oxford English Dictionary defines 鈥渢o be economical with the truth鈥� thus: 鈥渢o be partially or wholly untruthful; to (deliberately) mislead; to misrepresent the facts of a matter.鈥澛�
Some dictionaries flag the phrase as 鈥渉umorous.鈥� Mark Twain, for instance, played off it as a bit of a joke.聽
A chapter-head epigram in his 1897 book 鈥淔ollowing the Equator鈥� reads, 鈥淭ruth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.鈥澛�
Then he some fantastical directions for finding Samoa: 鈥淵ou go to America, cross the continent to San Francisco, and then it鈥檚 the second turning to the left.鈥� Twain was obviously having fun.聽
鈥淓conomical with the truth鈥� turned out to be not very funny, though, when it acquired renewed currency during the late 1980s.聽
The British government wanted to block publication of 鈥淪pycatcher,鈥� a high-level spy鈥檚 controversial memoir. When a British official being cross-颅examined in an Australian courtroom in connection with the effort acknowledged someone鈥檚 having perhaps been 鈥渆conomical with the truth,鈥� he evidently thought he was delivering a laugh line.聽
reported that the official paused to await a response. But no laughter was heard.聽
The cross-examiner went on to nail the witness for his duplicity. The British government lost its case, and the cross-examiner, , is now prime minister of Australia.
